STAT+: Pharmalittle: We’re reading about anxious Novartis investors, patent expirations for biologics, and more — SkimNews
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- Novartis shares plunged 11% in a single day this week, erasing nearly $30 billion in market value and wiping out all stock gains since the start of the year after del-desiran failed a late-stage study.
- Eight Novartis shareholders told Reuters they plan to step up scrutiny of the company's dealmaking strategy after del-desiran's failure — Novartis's second major trial setback in days — raised fresh concerns about its pipeline.
- Novartis acquired Avidity Biosciences last year for roughly $12 billion, and investors are now publicly questioning the value of that deal and other M&A moves.
- The Association for Accessible Medicines reports that 90% of expensive, widely used biologics facing patent expiration by 2034 have no lower-cost biosimilar alternatives currently in development.
- 118 popular biologic drugs are set to lose patent protection by 2034, potentially denying Americans nearly $200 billion in healthcare savings over the next decade, according to the trade group's estimates.
- Biosimilar uptake has declined steeply in recent years, dampening drugmaker interest in developing alternatives to off-patent biologics, even as the wave of expirations approaches.
Why it matters: Novartis's $30 billion single-day wipeout signals shareholders are no longer willing to underwrite acquisition-driven growth without trial success, and eight of them have gone on the record to demand scrutiny of the Avidity deal. Separately, the biologics data points to a $200 billion patient savings gap if the 90% of patent-expiring drugs without biosimilars aren't picked up by developers.
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